HOWIE AND HARRYIt appears that the Democrat Party is closer to imploding than the Republican. How else to explain the ongoing attempts by Democrat Party Chairman Howard Dean to destroy Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid?

According to knowledgeable DNC sources, Dean about ten days ago was shown opposition research documents generated by the Republican National Committee more than three years ago, which laid out facts regarding Reid and his family's lobbying and ethical conflicts.

Dean, according to the sources, was fascinated by the details, and asked that his staff research and independently confirm everything on the documents. "Basically he oppo'd a member of his own party," says a DNC source loyal to Dean.

"Basically, we were looking at three- or four-page documents that made Jack Abramoff's lobbying work look like that of a rank amateur," says the DNC source. "Between the minority leader's past in Nevada and here in Washington, and the activities of his sons and son-in-law, there probably isn't anyone in this town with more conflicts. The Reid family is the symbol of what's wrong with Washington; it's their behavior that enabled the culture that spawned people like Abramoff."

Dean then went public over the weekend, saying that Democrats with an Abramoff problem would be in trouble, not only with voters, but with the Democrat Party. But why attack a senior member of his own party?

According to Democrat Party watchers and DNC staff, Dean has grown increasingly frustrated at how he is treated by the likes of Reid, Sen. Dick Durbin, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who leads the House Democrat candidate recruitment effort. "They treat him like a lackey, not as an equal," says another DNC employee. "Just last week, they were all badmouthing his fundraising activities, when clearly he's done a good job. What this comes down to a fight for the soul of our party, and if the chairman has to draw a long knife on a few of his colleagues, he's more than willing to do so."

No money. No fellowship. No ideas, at least none that they can be honest about. No consensus except that they really really hate George W. Bush and he's not on the ballot. No power. No patronage. No charisma.

The storm has passed, and my Mom, sister, and two daughters are out climbing the shore searching for rainbows. I've got a turkey (49 cents a pound, Kash 'n' Karry) cooking on the rotisserie, the doors and windows are open and a fire is going in the fireplace.

Suppose the media, recognizing its role as a tool of the terrorist, refused to play its part? Suppose the media were on our side?

And his deed is heralded, while even our most virtuous acts are condemned around the world. Even in the days before mass media, assassins terrorized civilizations. Today, their deeds are amplified by a toxic, breathtakingly irresponsible communications culture that spans the globe. Photogenic violence is no longer a local affair--if a terrorist gives the media picturesque devastation, he reaches the entire planet. We cannot measure the psychological magnification, although we grasp it vaguely. And the media's liturgical repetition of the suicide bomber's act creates an atmosphere of sacrament. On a primal level, the suicide bomber impresses even his enemies with his conviction. We hasten to dismiss his deed as a perversion, yet it resounds as a vivid act of faith. Within his own cultural context, people may hate what the suicide bomber does, yet revere his sacrifice (and, too often, they do not hate what he does)...

Living in unprecedented safety within our borders and lacking firsthand knowledge of the decay beyond, honorable men and women have convinced themselves that Osama bin Laden's professed goals of driving the United States from the Middle East and removing corrupt regional governments are what global terror is all about. They gloss over his ambition of reestablishing the caliphate and his calls for the destruction of Israel as rhetorical effects--when they address them at all. Yet, Islamist fanatics are more deeply committed to their maximalist goals than to their lesser ones--and their unspoken ambitions soar beyond logic's realm. Religious terrorists are committed to an apocalypse they sense within striking distance. Their longing for union with god is inseparable from their impulse toward annihilation. They seek their god in carnage, and will go on slaughtering until he appears to pat them on the back.

Hmmm. Read Peters' column and tell me it doesn't have the ring of truth. But always the question remains: What should we do about it?

We have no tools of persuasion effective against a millenarian belief. What logic can we wield against the soul fortified by faith and barricaded beyond argument?

It occurs to me that broadcasting episodes of Baywatch into Arabia, new episodes in which dark skinned young men who turn away from from crazy imams always get the girl, might be a much better weapon that either cruise missiles or dry arguments about why Arabs should play nice.

We will not be defeated by suicide bombers in Iraq, but a chance remains that the international media may defeat us. Engaged with enemies to our front, we try to ignore the enemies at our back--enemies at whom we cannot return fire. Indeed, if anything must be profoundly reevaluated, it's our handling of the media in wartime.

Besides titillating subversion, other more direct options for negating a potent enemy come to mind.

So Usama bin Laden made a peace offer of sorts the other day. Whoop-dee-do. Let's make a counter offer. President Bush can issue an audio tape in which he mumbles acceptance of the terrorist peace offer, only they have to stop all attacks on civillians, everywhere in the world, for 60 days before we take them seriously.

Today's Democrats, particularly in the Senate, are showing us how hard it is to be the loyal opposition.

I remember how we used to excoriate the "country club" and "establishment" Republicans, who were always willing to compromise. They're motto seemed to be, "We're liberal, too; just not so much." Well, now we can see that moderating the leftiness of the left was the best they could do with the cards they were dealt. They fought a long, valiant rear action fighting retreat. To say it was thankless would be an understatement.

When we got our big breaks,

Ronald Reagan

Clinton's over-reach on socialist medicine

George W. Bush's razor thin Florida victory

we made the most of them. We were able to make the most of them, in part, because of the rear guard actions fought by Dole et. al. Senator Dole, I'm sorry for the mean things I said about you.

Look at the Democrats' behavior these days. They looked frankly out of their minds over the Alioto hearings. They looked like fools. They stopped nothing, but succeeded in making themselves irrelevant because they've proved they will oppose anybody for no other reason than they're not liberal. Since the President campaigned and won on the subject of conservative judges, their opposition looks like exactly what it is -- hysterical sour grapes. It would be fair to say their strategy is more akin to that of the suicide bomber than a disciplined infantry platoon.

I don't usually get involved in the religious emails thing, but this one I just got should be passed along. Keep it in mind during your busy day and we'll all get along better.

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares .

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together .

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity.

Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

I don't even know who sent it to me, nor do I recognize any of the names it was cc'd to, but I'm glad to have received it.

Former Iraqi air force general says that's where they went. I bet he's right. I bet some went to Iran, too. I never the bought the we-can't-find-them-so-therefore-they-didn't-exist argument. Besides saddam's actual use of WMD's, there was just too much evidence of his program, and he had too much time to prepare for our visit.

Seen at low tide

HummingbirdFinally, my first hummingbirds. Saw them on a fire bush in Crystal Beach, FL. My rental's neighbor's yard is all xeriscaped, which is ugly to me but just fine with the little hummers. At first, I thought they were the biggest hornets I'd ever seen.

Flamingo!One of these dudes flew right over my house. I couldn't believe it. And please don't tell me it was a roseated spoonbill because it was a frickin' flamingo, dude! Huge and pink and right there above me. I was like so freaking out, you know?

Black SkimmerThese beauties are getting scarce, but one flew by yesterday at low tide on the hunt for minnows.

Dead sea turtlecool, but smelly

Reddish EgretThese have been hanging out around the pool quite a bit lately. Must be a new group of adolesent birds -- the youngsters like to hunt where the water is clear, and it takes them a day to figure out there are not now and never will be fish in the swimming pool no matter how clear the water.

Sand Piper

Brown PelicanI saw a flock of about 200 of these at Disappearing Island yesterday, just south of Anclote Island on the west coast of FL. Good to see such a large flock.

Wood PeckerThey've developed a sudden interest in the orange tree, which just went into bloom.